The International Reporting Project is awarding fellowships to report on gender and LGBTI rights as well as religion issues around the world. The deadline to apply for the gender and LGBTI rights reporting fellowship has passed for spring and summer travel. We will reopen the application for fall and winter travel shortly. The application for...

Originally produced on March 20, 2017 for Mauldin Economics, LLC By George Friedman and Jacob L. Shapiro Spanish essayist George Santayana once wrote, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it,” but there is a problem with this famous and witty line. Studying history has little practical utility in averting past outcomes. We...

​KleptoCast 9: Ben Judah talks to Temuri Yakobashvili about Georgia’s successful anti-graft drive, current threats to its achievements, and Georgia’s role in Trump’s world. http://kleptocracyinitiative.org/inc/uploads/2017/03/Temuri-Yakobashvili.mp3 By Nate Sibley Before the Rose Revolution of 2003, Georgia was known as a...

Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Iranian counterpart, Hassan Rouhani, will meet for the eighth time in four years from March 27 to 29. According to the Tehran Times, both sides are “preparing more than ten documents for signing” on various economic and political issues. The meeting, set in Moscow, highlights the debate surrounding the...

State-controlled media in Russia proved considerably easier to control than the tens of thousands of citizens on March 26 who joined anti-corruption protests called by Alexei Navalny, despite the likelihood of arrests and gratuitous violence from OMON riot police and Russian President Vladimir Putin’s own ‘National Guard’ personal...

Editor’s note: Russia Direct stops updating its websiteRussia Direct has stopped updating its website following the failure of negotiations between an independent party to take over Russia Direct from its owner, Russian newspaper Rossisykaya GazetaRussia Direct has stopped updating its website following the failure of negotiations between...

Editor’s note: Russia Direct stops updating its websiteRussia Direct has stopped updating its website following the failure of negotiations between an independent party to take over Russia Direct from its owner, Russian newspaper Rossisykaya GazetaRussia Direct has stopped updating its website following the failure of negotiations between...

O.Torvald is the fourteenth Ukrainian act to appear in the Eurovision song contest. The country joined the family in 2003 and won the competition a year later with Ruslana’s Wild Dances. In 2007, Verka Serduchka came second with Dancing Lasha Tumbai. In 2008, the performer’s success was repeated by Ani Lorak, who sang Shady lady. In...